Adventurous Travels for 6th Graders

Geographically lying in the heart of the Balkan peninsula, the small town of Svrljig is acting as the capital of a relatively small Serbian land surrounded by exactly 38 villages that are, demographically speaking, living their lives on the edge of extinction. In just half a century, the human population of the area is more than halved, with more and more 'haunted-like' villages containing more empty houses than those with smoked winter chimneys, in which more people die than are born. The past of the area went through numerous changes over time and was pretty colorful, to say the least. Like everywhere else, ever since the written literacy spread its wings only a millennium ago, the history of Svrljig is pretty well documented ever since the great Schism of the 11th century, and we pretty much know what it was like to live here down to that time.

But history goes even further in the past—to those times we know little about, and all we have are a ruin here and there we can try to understand and build a time frame and story behind it. If you want to explore such sites and build a speculation or two standing in the middle of a stone pile that once was a dignified wall of an ancient villa or a military tower of thermae, Svrljig is a perfect place to start with. Moreover, if you want to experience nature at its greatest and to stumble upon sites of pure beauty just next to the modern ruins of almost empty villages and barely standing houses in contrast, you are just where you want to be. If you are a 6th grader with your own Indiana Jones hat and modern GoPro camera, even better.

Historically and in every way considered, the grand jewel title of all the Svrljig adventurous travels goes to the gorgeous Niševac gorge. This was the prime location of ancient life, lying just next to the Roman main road connecting the Adriatic Sea and Danube River, wide enough to carry a luxury chariot without heavy disturbance from the built stones and strong enough to support the passage of the heaviest army of the time (there's evidence of the First Cohort of Cretans stationed around here). The gorge was an ancient spa once with strong mineral springs with healing properties perfect for a settlement that once existed and was named Timaco Maiori (Timacum Maius). The road and the town were recorded by Tabula Peutingeriana, an ancient Roman road map with its seventh section along the way of the ancient cities of Lissus, Naissus, and Rataria. The mineral springs and wellheads no longer exist today due to violent geological events in previous millennia, or they are just depleted by now, but the beauty of the ancient site is still alive, and it is not hard to imagine what it once looked like.

The ruins go even further in time in this area with archaeological evidence of Paleo-Balkan tribes. Before the Romans, this area was once home to the Triballi, a Thracian tribe that lived in the same times as the Celts, Scythians, and Illyrians in the prehistory of Southeastern Europe. Along with all the other extinct Indo-European people and their languages of the Balkans, Triballi fully dispersed during the Hellenization, Romanization, and Slavicization of the region over the eons. It's maybe harsh to say, but most likely Triballi, just like other people who lived here and built their settlements ever since the Neolithic, are now only part of our genes and heritage; we have no substantial knowledge of.

But to get back to the travel itself, we had luck this summer since the railway was closed and traffic-free due to maintenance and rail replacement, and while hiking Niševac gorge, a 1.5 km-long canyon carved in calcium carbonate rocks from the Mesozoic period, we took the chance and stood on the Milutin Milanković bridge, 15 or so meters above an ancient river, designed at the dawn of the first world war by one of the most famous Serbian scientists.

The river name originated back to the Triballi people, who were the first to name it Timahos, which is just one of the words from an extinct Indo-European language that more or less means 'black water'. This particular stream is just one of five rivers that bind together into one of the biggest tributaries of the mighty Danube. The Romans used to call it Timacus or Timaco, and the name stayed until today with the Serbian version of Timok. Our next stop on this summer's travels was exactly 25 kilometers upstream, not far from the spot where the river springs into life. The place is called Pandiralo, and it is literally one of a kind natural phenomena where Timok sinks into a cave and appears again about 750 meters later with around 30 meters of difference in altitude. The legend says the cave goes even further under the mountain and connects other streams as well, but this is still unknown to this date. It was also a one-of-a-kind opportunity to create three messages in the bottle, which Viktor threw into the pit, and hopefully, when the water rises, they will sink with the river, and maybe somebody will find them in the future. Who knows, maybe they will appear somewhere unexpected.

Finally, and unrelated to the river, we also had a short trip to the Samar cave entrance (Milutin’s Cave in the village of Kopajkošara on the slopes of the Kalafat mountain, some 15 kilometers west of Svrljig) and the natural Popšica pool close by. The cave earned its nickname after Milutin Veljković, a well-known Serbian speleologist in his time, who, starting in the year 1969, spent 464 days in the cave, breaking the world record in bivouacking in an underground space. While we didn't enter the cave, as it requires special equipment and guided help, we still had a unique experience of the site, which we are hoping to visit again for a more thorough investigation, including passing through the entire cave from end to end, but I am afraid this is a little bit above the pay grade of 6th graders, and we will have to wait for a year or two. Or three. Or even more.

Svrljig neighborhood and the town itself are one of those inspirational destinations with the power to hook you for years of returning trips, and the beauty lies in the wilderness of the whole experience. There are no fences or limited areas here, and the only guide is yourself and your wanderlust gene. The food in restaurants is divine, and the mountain air comes with healing abilities if you stay long enough. The Svrljig area extends to the east to the famous Balkan mountains, the backbone of the largest peninsula of southern Europe, with more sites that come naturally enriched with a variety of elements, including uranium ore.

I am definitely affected by the Svrljig geography and history as well, to the level that one of my science fiction stories included this particular area as the main plot for Arty's adventure. If you are eager to explore the story, it is based on "Serbian Kryptonite", the Jadarite mineral with a chemical formula similar to the formula invented for the fictional substance kryptonite in the 2006 film 'Superman Returns'. The story is the final chapter of the FAR-T1 novel you can find on the blog.

Location and Character of Timacum Maius
https://www.academia.edu/5901475/.../Location_and_Character_of_Timacum_Maius

Traces of the Roman Naissus–Ratiaria Road
http://www.doiserbia.nb.rs/img/doi/

Milutin Milanković
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milutin_Milankovic

Tabula Peutingeria
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1d/Extends_of_the_Tabula_Peutingeria.png

Tabula Peutingeriane VII (nowadays Serbia)
https://sr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula_Peutingeriana_Serbia.jpg

The First Cohort of Cretans, a Roman Military Unit at Timacum Maius
https://www.academia.edu/.../The_First_Cohort_of_Cretans

Samar Cave Adventure
https://naturetraveloffice.com/en/avanture/caving/avantura-samar/

Samar Cave, a forgotten jewel worthy of Guinness record
https://www.itinari.com/samar-cave-a-forgotten-jewel-worthy-of-guinness-record-knx9

Fairies of Naissus

In pre-Christian mythologies of the western and northern tribes and their pagan beliefs, female deities were not uncommon. Take, for instance, old Gaul's Matres or Valkyries of the old Norse mythology and, of course, all the goddesses from the history of all polytheistic religions around the globe. But perhaps the most interesting of them all are, you guessed it, the fairies. They are not actually deities per se and rather belong to the spirit realm of the afterlife and dead, but still you can find them, in one form or another, in almost all religious legends and myths. The city where I was born, the valley it resides in, and the river that splits it in half are no different. The history of this area is, metaphorically speaking, very colorful and full of wonders, all the way to the beginning of the Neolithic era, and over the centuries this valley literally saw lots of different cultures and deities. One of them dates way back to the Celtic Gauls and their tribe named Scordisci, who lived in this neighborhood almost 24 centuries ago. They were the ones who named the river and the first settlement Naissa/Navissos, which pretty much means 'the river and town of fairies'. Whether or not this area in BC was flooded with fairies, or perhaps the geography of it resembled their beliefs, or even the very "Celtic Otherworld" was pictured and portrayed like our own neighborhood, the name survived for centuries, and despite numerous conquerors and different cultures, the fairies stayed in the name and the 'spirit' of the town all the way till today. Perhaps the first document that 'officially' coined Celtic's name was published in Alexandria by the famous Claudius Ptolemy in his masterpiece 'Geography' (around AD 150), in which he mentioned Ναϊςςός (Latin: Naissus) as 'first among the four largest towns in Roman Dardania'*.

Kristine Opolais in Dvořák’s 'Rusalka' - The Met Opera***

When I said the town inherited not only the 'fairy tale' name but also the spirit that it is still living in legends and myths, what I really had in mind was one particular spot on the northern hill named 'Metoh' and the outskirts of the town where, almost throughout the millennium, stands a ruin of an old temple built on that particular spot by one of the Byzantine emperors in the 11th century. The official name of the temple was 'Holy Trinity Church', but over time it earned the prefix 'Rusalija', which pretty much originated from old Serbian folklore and, no doubt, connects the church with Rusalkas, mythical water nymphs or female spirits from old pagan Slavic mythology. In some Slavic languages, Russian included, the word 'rusalka' translated to English literally means 'mermaid'. This variation of immortal creatures from the spirit world is completely opposite from the 'Tinkerbell' kind of fairies; instead, they could be very malevolent and dangerous young undead girls who died in or near a river or a lake and spent eternity haunting the waterway. With their long red hair and beautiful appearance and singing, they lure young men into the depths to their deaths. In Serbian stories, even hearing their song results in immediate deafness. They are the most deadly for an entire week, 50 days after Easter, which comes in late May or early June every year. As it seems, legends say that they are only afraid of wormwood and garlic, so try to have them with you if you are a true believer.

'Holy Trinity Rusalija' - abandoned temple from 11th century

Well, we didn't have any garlic in our pockets last November when we visited the church, and I truly hated my curiosity when I read about Rusalkas before we drove there. Sometimes it is extremely wise to read about horror myths after you visit the spot where these malicious fairies live. Firstly, the site was eerie—the church is abandoned, and to get to it, you have to drive through the old graveyard. People seem to visit the place only once a year, during 'Holy Trinity' week. Secondly, the weather was way too windy and spooky, and I had to engage all my driving skills to enter the churchyard; the car simply didn't want to enter due to the poor quality of the stone entrance and kept rolling backwards. Thirdly, it was almost sunset, part of the day usually identified with 'twilight hour'. When we finally got inside, my wife refused to get out of the car, and in a couple of minutes of intense bravery, only Viktor and I went out to take a couple of photos. Needless to say, the feeling was truly cheerless, and the only bright part of the site was the view. The location was perfect, and we glimpsed the entire city with a large orange sun on the horizon, and I finally took one of the best sunsets in our collection along with great shots of the little temple itself. Confidentially speaking, if Viktor didn't bring his plastic gun toy, we would probably stay less time listening to that spooky Rusalka's songs... or heavy wind whistles... or whatever it was. Although I would be feeling much safer with a couple of garlic cloves... Ahem ...

The sunset from the 'Holy Trinity' church (Metoh hill)

However, besides city and river names, the history of this area in BC is not very well documented, archaeologically speaking, and even though there is plenty of evidence and finds, before Ptolemy's reference, nothing is certain. But the names are always interesting, and as they survive millennia, there are many speculations of their origin. Celtic 'Navissos' is no doubt related to fairies; I mean, even the word 'fairy' was coined by ancient Gauls in what is nowadays France, and the root is in the Old French word 'faerie', which means 'enchantment' or 'under the spell'. However, even before the Celtic invasion of the Balkans in the 3rd century BC, this land was populated with various forms of societies and civilization. It lies on the crossroads between north and south and west and east, and as I described in post Constantine & Naissus, it was always under siege or some sort of raid. Due to this geographic misfortune, one tribe never managed to rule this area for, relatively speaking, long periods of time. Before the Celtic tribe of Scordisci, who stayed here after the Celts retreated from the invasion of Greece, the land was occupied by people of Dardani, who originated either from an estranged Illyrian tribe or, as some scholars suggest, directly from the ancient city of Dardania, located next to the city of Troy, as described in Homer's Illiad, who moved to the Balkans millennia before AD. Even before Dardani's rule, at some point in the 4th century this area was raided and occupied by Triballi tribes, and if you add Greeks and Romans and constant threats from Goths and Huns from the north and far east, you'd get the picture of how unwise it was to settle around here in ancient times. Anyhow, the point is that almost everybody managed to spend some time here and to contribute a little in those violent times. Or, to be precise, to contribute to everything but changing the original name that stayed the same from the very beginning.

Niš downtown by the old fortress and Nišava river

So let's try to summarize the names from all those conquerors over time: Navissos, Ναϊσσός, Naissus, Nais, Niş, and Niš, all of them related to fairies in different languages. Perhaps the most interesting connection with the name is during Greek rule, especially from the golden prosperity times of Macedonian expansion at some point centuries before Christ. In Greek mythology exists the famous mountain of Nysa, which was the traditional place where the rain nymphs (Hyades) raised the semi-god Dionysus, who was one of those bad guys from Olympus—the god of wine, ritual madness, and religious ecstasy. And to quote Wikipedia, Dionysus represents everything that is chaotic, dangerous, and unexpected, everything that escapes human reason and that can only be attributed to the unforeseeable action of the gods. I guess there is no need to add that one hypothesis of the location of Nysa (which is still unknown if it's not made up) is within ancient Tribalia or, pretty much... this neighborhood again. Tribalia and triballian tribes were located entirely in what is nowadays Eastern Serbia, which borders the Niš Valley and its northeastern mountains. By the myth, and just like their half-sisters, sea-nymphs Pleiades and rain-nymphs Hyades were transformed into a cluster of stars that was afterwards associated with rain. So if you look up on a bright starry night and see the Hyades in the constellation of Taurus, which is the nearest open star cluster to the Solar System, remember that their five brightest stars might have been living just around within my north neighboring mountains in their... fairy existence.

Ivan Kramskoi, Русалки (Rusalki), 1871

Of course, Greek mythology doesn't end this story about the origin of the name of my birth town with fairies. Even in Scandinavian mythology, there is a 'Nis', a dwarfed male fairy in Danish Jutland (Nisse god-dreng, Nisse good lad**), who offers his help to run households if, of course, he is pleased by a treat (groute) every evening. In the end, I am sure that Niš, or old Naissus, if you will, is one of the rarest cities on the planet with a real fairytale in its name origin, and I would really like to see a tribute to fairies, even to the evil Rusalkas, in the form of some sort of street art or museum or something that could show a modest traveler, tourist, or web surfer not only the history of one town's name but also a hint of how once our ancestors pictured the spirit world and their interaction with people. If this happens anytime in the future, this post will definitely get its sequel with hopefully great photos and more stories.

Inage credits and direct refs:
*** https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/03/arts...rusalka.html
* http://www.poesialatina.it/_ns/greek/testi/Claudius_Ptolemaeus/Geographia_(lib._1-3).html
** http://www.celtic-twilight.com/otherworld/fairy_mythology/scandinavia3.htm
http://www.guideforthearts.com/renee-fleming-to-star-in-the-title-role-of-rusalka/
http://celticruins.blogspot.rs/2014/06/fairies-haunt-springs-wells-and-rivers.html
http://www.niscafe.com/grad-nis/

Refs:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rusalka
http://www.timelessmyths.com/celtic/faeries.html
http://celticruins.blogspot.rs/2014/06/fairies-haunt-springs-wells-and-rivers.html
http://celticruins.blogspot.rs/2014_06_01_archive.html
http://www.panacomp.net/serbia?mesto=srbija_sveta%20trojica%20matejevac
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scordisci
http://www.doiserbia.nb.rs/img/doi/0350-7653/2006/0350-76530637007P.pdf
http://www.historyfiles.co.uk/KingListsMiddEast/AnatoliaDardania.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nysa_(mythology)

The Oldest Pictograph for Copper

Last year, during our visit to the Cretan site of Knossos and their wonderful museum in Heraklion dedicated in large part to one of the greatest peaceful periods in human history, I didn't hide my admiration for the old Minoans and their way of life. I even said I would move to Crete without second thoughts if I had a time machine, mainly to avoid the hostility of the world order we are currently living in today. At the time, considering only the European continent, I was under the impression that cultures like Minoan were rare and the Bronze Age society we glimpsed on Crete was maybe walking on the edge of being the only one in the history of mankind. To say the least, I couldn't be more wrong.

Only a couple of millennia before the late Neolithic period, known as the Chalcolithic or simply the Copper Age, there was an old European society that lived for centuries and also flourished in peaceful harmony and perfect equilibrium with nature, themselves, and their immediate land, where they built large settlements with big houses, streets, and infrastructure. And one of their major cities, by using vocabulary for describing settlements built 7000 years ago, existed almost next to my backyard. So to speak.

Prehistoric Europe, probably like everywhere else in the world, has experienced a civilization boom after the Neolithic revolution and invention of agriculture, along with the domestication of wild animals. That also included a boost in population and ways of living, and in these parts of the world, for almost eight centuries, if not longer, rose a civilization that belonged to the well-known Turdaș-Vinča culture. Many archaeologists today consider this early civilization for the throne of being the first independent and distinguished modern humans and true civilization cradle.

More than ten major settlements were found, and most of them were in the process of excavation throughout Serbian territories, with the addition of several more within neighboring lands, especially Transylvania in central Romania. These people not only perfected agriculture but also were the first to initiate the Copper Age in world history. The art of pottery was their hallmark, and many alien-shaped figurines triggered a wave of 'ancient astronauts' theories, and I will only quote one of the referenced articles: "The appearance of these figurines is striking. Many depictions of extraterrestrials in ancient literature and art reference the same oval-shaped heads, enormous almond eyes with dark pupils, and small noses and mouths". Whether or not this is evidence enough to conclude that Vinča people were in contact with extraterrestrial beings who helped them to achieve a higher level of life, I will let you conclude or ignore, but one thing is for sure: these people, along with their way of clothing and decorating, early metallurgy, and the functionality of their large, for the time, houses and settlements, were almost on the same levels of civilization as the old Minoans who lived and flourished three millennia later.

If you add to the facts that pottery was practiced at the household level with artifacts clearly created and shaped by children, along with evidence that women's clothing included mini-skirts and trousers, it is really fascinating. All vanished civilizations from ancient times earned their place in the evolution of humanity, but those of them who practiced or invented something for the first time and what we today take for granted represent our true and genuine heritage. Within the humanity tree, Vinča people deserved a very special place for two very important things in our evolution as a species.

They developed one of the earliest forms of proto-writing, which still waits for definite evidence of whether or not it overgrown simplicity over centuries and became the true representation of their spoken language. The second achievement is indisputable for most scholars. This culture was the first one, in the current knowledge and archaeological evidence, to learn how to smelt copper ore. They were the pioneers who took the big step toward the end of the Stone Age.

Vinča-Turdaș symbols were found practically everywhere engraved on artifacts excavated in Serbia and Romania. Hence the name by which it is known; like with Cretan civilization, we don't know how they called themselves. Most of the inscriptions are on pottery, and the vast majority of the inscriptions consist of a single symbol. This indicates that symbols are used similarly to what we are familiar with today as "icons", and lots of different pictographs are probably designed to identify the object they are engraved on, the content of it, the owner, value, and measure, perhaps even the ancient logo of the household or manufacturer. Most likely the names of individuals as well. For example, the name Cochise of Native Americans' Apache means "oak wood", and one of the Vinča symbols most definitely means the same thing. No doubt there were a series of pictographs related to copper and whatever they made out of it.

However, over the time of civilization's existence, the script probably evolved along, and these three tablets in the image above, found at a site in the village of Tărtăria, indicate more complex writing that most likely represents words of their language. So far, no "Epic of Gilgamesh" alternative has been found, but lots of work on sites is still ahead, and I am sure many other sites are still waiting to be found. Even so, Vinča symbols predate the earliest Sumerian cuneiform script, Egyptian hieroglyphs, and the first Minoan writing by far.

To me, the Vinča-Turdaș script most definitely resembles all other linear scripts, which means by using the symbols it is possible to write complex lines and sentences, but I am far from being the expert in the field. However, this suggestion is sound, and lines of text dated to the period and found in two locations in Bulgaria and Greece support the hypothesis. For the theory to become proven or disputed, cracking the ancient code must be done first, but for all lost languages, this is not easy. For example, old Minoans used a "Linear A" script that is still a mystery even though it is related to its solved big brother, "Linear B". Its amazing that these three scripts are possible to download in the form of TrueType fonts, and just for fun, I used them in this image to print "Milan's Public Journal" in Vinča, Minoan, and Mycenaean. This is rubbish, of course, and all these people from the past would need very different keyboards to write their languages (letters of the alphabet would not do any good for their symbols), but still, it was fun to play with.

While the writing puzzle is still not solved, Vinča people who lived nearby natural deposits of copper ore very quickly developed a process to extract the metal from the mineral and to build various tools and weapons used only for hunting. One of such sites is the one from my neighborhood. Only an hour of driving to the south is the archaeological site of Pločnik, probably the first ancient city in the world where copper smelting was industrialized. We visited the site last weekend, where we found amazing replicas of Vinča people's homes and also a nearby museum in the city of Prokuplje with lots of excavated items from the site and lots of stories from the excavation itself.

Even today, there are deposits of malachite and azurite in the wide area where the site is located, and our guide hinted that in the past they were probably able to find them in the river as well. Both are common copper minerals that are melted at 700 °C. Campfires are about 200° short of the temperature needed, so they built square-shaped furnaces stored in larger buildings with pipe-like earthen blowers with hundreds of tiny holes in them used to blow compressed air directly into fire. Whether people, like Viktor in the above video, were manually blowing the air or they had some sort of leather bellows is still unknown.

The place is very big—more than 100 hectares. The ancient city was large and populated from 5500 to 4700 BC in a row until it was destroyed in a big fire by probably intruders from afar. What happened with survivors and where they moved after is also not known. Like Minoans, no peaceful society ever survived hostile events and probably ceased to exist entirely or fully dispersed among the newcomers. Anyhow, we were all carrying lots of impressions from the last weekend trip to the history of our own neighborhood, along with a piece of pottery, 7000 years old, we received as a gift from the excavation park. No words could describe all of our gratefulness, especially Viktor's, when he had to choose a piece that maybe once belonged to his peer from the early Copper Age.

The Minoan Legacy:
https://www.mpj.one/2017/07/the-minoan-legacy.html

Stone Age of Iron Gates:
https://www.mpj.one/2015/08/stone-age-of-iron-gates.html

Cyclops of Peloponnese:
https://www.mpj.one/2016/08/cyclops-of-peloponnese.html

Image & Video refs:
https://www.disclose.tv/the-danube-valley-civilization-script-is-the-worlds-oldest-writing-313756
http://korzoportal.civcic.com/julka-kuzmanovic-cvetkovic-plocnik-kako-doziveti-neolit/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCH2BtavSrxaRyvOJS5JZaHQ

Refs:
http://www.ancient-wisdom.com/serbiavinca.htm
https://cogniarchae.com/2015/10/29/tartaria-connection-between-vinca-and-proto-linear-b-script/
https://www.disclose.tv/mysterious-vinca-statuettes-evidence-of-extraterrestrial-contact-313094
http://www.ancientpages.com/2015/09/30/mysterious-ancient-vinca-culture-undeciphered-script/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinca_culture
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinca_symbols
https://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-places-europe/civilisation-script-oldest-writing
http://www.ancientpages.com/2018/02/17/7000-year-old-inscription-undeciphered-vinca-script/
https://www.omniglot.com/writing/vinca.htm
http://vrtoplica.mi.sanu.ac.rs/en/section/58
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smelting#Copper_and_bronze
https://journals.uair.arizona.edu/index.php/radiocarbon/article/view/17456/pdf
https://www.behindthename.com/names/usage/native-american

Serbian refs:
https://sr.wikipedia.org/sr/Плочник_(археолошки_локалитет)
https://www.serbia.com/srpski/posetite-srbiju/kulturne-atrakcije/arheoloska-nalazista/vinca/
http://muzejtoplice.org.rs/index.php/en/muzejtoplice
https://www.facebook.com/pages/category/Civilization-Museum/Arheo-park-Pločnik

Goddess Zhiva

My great-great-grandfather was born in 1845, and he spent his entire life in the turmoil of the second half of the 19th century. Little is known about his life; after all, life in rural Serbian villages in past times wasn't really documented well, and literacy among the majority of people wasn't something our ancestors could be proud of. However, what was a major disadvantage for most people turned out to be a great opportunity for my great-great-grandfather. Besides being literate and educated, he was gifted with a human property only a few others possess. He owned a strong and melodic voice that would probably guarantee him at least a radio host job if he were born a century later. Anyhow, one of his tasks was to read newspapers, various dispatches, and communiques while standing in the center of the village square, surrounded by neighbors and people from nearby settlements. Soon enough, he earned valuable prominence in his family, and his children decided to devote our family name to him. Ever since then and after, more or less 100 years, our last name has been carrying my great-great-grandfather's, Zhiva.

Artistic presentation of Goddess Zhiva

But his name goes even further in the past. A millennium or two before my great-great-grandfather, this name belonged first to someone else entirely. Zhiva (Živa) was the name of the old Slavic goddess of life, fertility, and marriage, one of numerous terrestrial goddesses. It literally means "living, being, existing", and compared to other religions of the past, Zhiva was the goddess similar to Hera, Demeter, and Aphrodite of the ancient Olympians and very much alike goddess Sif from the old Norse mythology. Thanks to modern pop culture, especially comics and, in recent years, movie blockbusters, we are pretty familiar with the old beliefs of our ancestors in Greece, Rome, and Scandinavia, but tremendous and equally colorful stories are hiding in old Slavic mythology as well. Like with our family name, in one way or another, old stories of ancient mythology survived all these years. And not just stories—the customs, celebrations, and rituals are very much alive even today, despite all the efforts from the new Christian religion that tried or are still trying to eliminate old paganism from people's minds.

Contrary to the old Greeks, Romans, or Scandinavians, who more or less occupied smaller territories, Slavs spread to vast areas of nowadays Asia and Eastern Europe. Numerous cultures and nations emerged from several migrations and gave birth to slightly different mythology of the same deities, and in different Slavic languages and histories, Zhiva is known with different names, and the most prominent ones were Zhibog (life god), Živa, Жива, Siwa, Šiwa, etc. Along with the variety of names comes the variety of descriptions, and searching for definite and the most accurate ancient text is the mission impossible or one of those Sisyphean tasks if we want to stay in the realm of old legends and stories. However, I did find one mutual description of her that pretty much covers all sources, and it explains the goddess as: "Zhiva is the main female goddess in the world of the Slavs. Like the god Svarog, she covers the whole world with his light and closely follows the basic laws of the Kind. Goddess Zhiva gives tenderness, care, kindness, heart, and care to all pregnant women and lactating mothers." Zhiva existed as a supreme goddess, and she was the offspring of the main Slavic deities (Rod as a main supreme god, creator of everything; Svarog, god of heaven; and three great goddesses), a sister goddess to other female deities (Vesna, Morana, and Lada, terrestrial goddesses related to Earth seasons), the sister of the god of thunder and lightning Perun, and the wife of Dabog (Dazhbog), the god of sun, justice, and well-being.

Artistic presentation of Slavic temple

I can imagine that it is very hard to enumerate all Slavic gods, their relations, and all their pantheons due to the vast diversity of Slavic people, but if we consider only South Slavs who migrated to the Balkans at some point in the 6th century, one thing is for sure. They immediately collided with upcoming and already established Christianity that took heavy root in the Roman and Byzantine empires. Almost immediately, missionaries are sent to start conversion and kill old beliefs for good. It turned out it was another wave of Sisyphean tasks that required centuries to process. Serbs accepted the new religion only later in the 9th century, but not entirely. While god in plural ended with its existence almost fully with the start of the second millennium, many customs remained until today. For example, Serbian people still celebrate a family religious day called slava, which was dedicated to the god the family had chosen to be their protector in the old days. Christianity never succeeded in eliminating this custom and only managed to convert it into worshiping Christian saints instead. What was once a day dedicated to Perun, god of thunder, is now replaced with Saint Elijah (Sveti Ilija), which is also connected with thunders and lightnings in Christian tales. Old Serbs believed that gods could take the form of ordinary people who were visiting family homes at random times, and one of the related customs was warm hospitality toward strangers who knocked on their doors. The oak was the holy tree, and all the temples were built out of it instead of using heavy and everlasting stones. In the aftermath, no Slavic holy sights and temples persisted today. In temples dedicated to goddess Zhiva, high priests wore ritual hats or helmets with horns, which were symbols of fertility among Slavic people and other religious folklore throughout Europe in the old times.

Aside from Slavic deities, Serbs believed in other godly creatures who had influence over nature, like ghosts, fairies, demons, dragons, and forest mothers, and also human-like creatures that originated from people like vampires, witches, werewolves, etc. The list is endless. To better live with all those beasts and scary underworld monsters, many rituals are invented and practiced all over. One in particular is still alive in Eastern Serbia in the event called Rusalje, where women fall into trances after ritually caroling and dancing and virtually connect to the ghosts and afterlife world in order to predict future events and understand upcoming dangers. Interesting facts are that many women refused to exert 'the healing procedure' in local monasteries performed by Christian priests and willingly performed the ritual every year. Of course, these were the extremes, but there were other more benevolent rituals that were practiced in the past, and I would not be surprised if they are still alive today. For example, if we are talking about Zhiva, human worshipers were ceremonially providing bouquets of flowers, fruits, and wheat on numerous occasions, but also there was a ritual of sacrificing a rooster before the time when wheat is sown and/or after the harvest is over.

Christian church on the Isle of Bled

If we are considering the Eastern European Slavic history, perhaps the strongest sites where Zhiva was worshiped were throughout the lands of nowadays Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, and eastern Germany, but perhaps the most interesting site where the temple of Zhiva once existed was the famous Lake Bled in Slovenia. More precisely, the foundation of the temple that provided the support for a square wooden house in the 8th century was excavated under the Christian church on the Isle of Bled. Attached to the foundation was a square building with an apse from the 9th century that clearly indicates the transition from a pagan temple to an early Christian church. Christian missionaries dedicated to shutting down old Slavic sites and temples at the time almost always transferred the sites of worshiping Slavic goddesses into the worship of the Mother of God to ease the transition, and the nowadays church on Lake Bled is consecrated to the Ascension of Mary. The temple of Zhiva on the Isle of Bled and the waterfall on the nearby Savica river were commemorated and celebrated in the epic poem 'Baptism on Savica' by the 19th-century Slovenian poet France Prešeren.

Well, temples dedicated to Zhiva definitely no longer exist, but it is documented that many places, at least in Serbia, with names that survived the last millennium and have the words 'deva' or 'baba' in their roots (which means goddess mother) suggest sites of worshiping the female deity, most likely locations of Zhiva's temples. A couple of those places and nearby mountains have such words near the village where my great-great-grandfather lived and where our summer house still stands. Also, lots of people's names and surnames have the word 'Živa' in the root, and they all originate in old Slavic beliefs. Years ago, during my education in high school and faculty, Živa was my nickname, and I always turned around if I heard somebody call it.

Image refs:
https://www.rbth.com/multimedia/pictures/2017/08/10/reanimating-slavic-gods-the-man-who-breathes-life-into-deities_820264
https://www.locationscout.net/locations/6017-lake-bled
http://www.1zoom.me/de/wallpaper/156998/z349.2/

Refs:
http://www.starisloveni.com/Bogovi.html
https://www.etsy.com/dk-en/listing/550443944/goddess-zhiva-wood-birch-statue-slavic
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deities_of_Slavic_religion
https://www.rasen.rs/2017/01/rusalje-ili-zene-padalice/#.W26_Kegza00
https://www.srbijadanas.com/vesti/info/misterija-istocne-srbije-ko-su-zene-koje-padaju-u-trans-i-predvidaju-buducnost-2017-05-20
https://vesna.atlantidaforum.com/?p=3916
http://lifestyle.enaa.com/horoskop/Kdo-je-bila-Ziva.html
http://vladimir-uno.blogspot.com/2015/09/ziva-goddess-of-living-water-life-love.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France_Pre%C5%A1eren

The Minoan Legacy

Often, I found myself giving a glimpse of thoughts of where I would move on this world in order to acquire at least a little bit better life compared to what we currently have. Or when. Has there ever been a time in history when there was a civilization with a more dignified style of living? With society built with a more honest foundation toward themselves and their neighbors. With equality among people, gender, color, skin, and different cultures. With not at all or just a hint of superstition and religiosity. With no temples higher than schools and people's homes. With cities without strong police keeping order and without military of any kind. Was there a country without fortifications, both real and metaphorical? With no or just a bearable hostility toward others...

There is definitely no such idealistic settlement in this world. Not now. But there was one before. More than three thousand years ago on the island of Crete. The first civilization in Europe and perhaps the first and last one that fits this description. The place where I would time travel without hesitation if I could.

We know them in our history books as the Minoans, but that wasn't their real name. What they called themselves we don't know. We don't understand their letters and can't read their tablets. They built marvelous settlements with almost all the modern infrastructure we are familiar with today. Glorious city-palaces with paved roads between them. With main squares where they preferred practicing sports and arts instead of going into temples to pray. They were people who invented and lived one idealistic, peaceful life and based their wealth on trades among themselves and all the others across the sea.

Unfortunately, after several attempts throughout eons, human nature and natural catastrophes destroyed Minoan civilization, and these people at the end dispersed fully, and their way of life faded away for good. Among neighboring civilizations and their saved documents, as well as with the Bible, their names were probably either Keftiu, Kaptarians, Caphtor, or Kabturi. Or if you like, we can even call them Atlanteans if we connect Plato's story with the Minoan volcanic eruption that reshaped the island of Thera in the middle of the second millennium BC. Perhaps we should wait for their Linear A script to be revealed by maybe another Rosetta Stone, but until then, Sir Evan's label for Minoans based on the old Greek mythology is the best we've got. Nevertheless, this blog post is not really history research, and more stories about related old times I tried to list below in the references, but one thing is for sure. The end of Minoan culture, which started with earthquakes and at least one cataclysmic volcanic eruption, faded and dispersed during the final couple of centuries of the second millennium with hostile raids and occupations over time from both directions: mainland Greece in the face of old Mycenaeans and ancient invaders from the direction of the Middle East.

However, their life based on solely manufacturing goods and food, honest trade, sports, arts, and all the non-hostile human activities was once indeed possible and flourishing. Unfortunately, their legacy is, as it seems, lost for good, and after more than three and a half thousand years, we are living in a world filled with fear of self-destruction with little hope for humanity to survive the next three millennia. Anyhow, the road, or to better say, the airplane, took us this summer to the island of Crete, and we landed at the Chania airport, which is also the military base that hosts both air and nearby naval forces. The sight of supersonic fighters constantly flying above the beaches, heavy military aircraft parked next to the civilian runway, and large destroyer ships anchored in Souda Bay was definitely not something old Minoans would evolve into if history played the cards differently. After visiting the Knossos archeological site and the wonderful museum in Heraklion dedicated to these ancient people, I am certain of it.

Caused by the city's amazing scope and Minoan fascination for bulls, centuries after the fall of civilization, Greek mythology created one of the most famous stories with characters as strong as Daedalus, Icarus, King Minos, Theseus, and, of course, the Minotaur captured in the center of the labyrinth. On the other side, the most plausible truth of why Knossos was built the way it was built is simply because Crete was positioned on top of the movement of the African tectonic plate under the Eurasian plate. This is causing lots of earthquakes, small and big, and results from the complex geological process; the entire eastern side of the island is sinking while the western part is rising. The ancient builders purposely made the palace in this way in order to sustain constant ground shake, with buildings and chambers literally supporting each other from all directions.

It probably goes without saying that I am fascinated with Greece and the Greeks. Their amazing history and all the contributions their ancestors gave to the rest of the world are enormous. With this summer trip, I rounded out walking the lands of all three main stages of ancient Greek times. Classical Greece that belongs to the mainland north of Sparta, the Mycenaean epoch that precedes them in the time of Agamemnon, and now the ancient civilization of Minoans that precedes them all. Surely, there are many more sites to see, but somehow I felt today that I fulfilled the genuine urge to visit all the main places and to walk the same paths where stories from history (and mythology) took place.

Our prime vacation time this summer was in Agia Marina, a cute little place several kilometers west of Chania, where we spent a wonderful ten days exploring local beaches and took an excursion to the old Venetian harbor in the old city and its nautical museum with an exact replica of the Bronze Age Minoan ship. The second trip to Heraklion and Knossos completed our travel through the history of the island, and the following day-by-day travel video clip Viktor and I made hopefully will show you more than still images could, especially if you have never visited Crete before.

Surely, summer vacations are never about visiting museums and the history of the area. It is also about the present, and in the most hedonistic fashion, we also visited the Balos Lagoon, one of the greatest beaches in Europe, and, most of all, tried to enjoy the time by meeting local people and visiting local sites and the neighborhood. It is hard to say what we liked the most, and I guess the best thing is to say that Crete is an exceptional place to visit. Something we will definitely try to do again. Many thanks to all the good people we met this July, especially to the crew of Fly Fly Travel and their great guides, Nebojša and Dobrivoje, for all their super-professional work and help.

Image and video refs:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/Tp8ugeNBg07zE9q52
https://www.greecehighdefinition.com/greece/

Refs:
http://www.odysseyadventures.ca/articles/knossos/articleKnossos01.html
http://paleoglot.blogspot.rs/2010/01/minoan-name-for-minoa.html
http://www.minoanatlantis.com/Minoan_Science.php
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-22527821
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knossos
https://www.timemaps.com/civilizations/minoan-civilization/
http://ancient-greece.org/history/minoan.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_A
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minoan_civilization
https://www.saylor.org/site/wp-content/.../HIST101-2.3.2-MinoanCrete-FINAL.pdf
http://www.ancient.eu/Minoan_Civilization/

Warfare Then and Now

Lately I was watching the current stream of war-related news and the Syrian migrant crisis, and I thought of what I would say on the blog about actual, continuous, and devastating warfare in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East and the stupidity of the literally inexplicable background of who is fighting whom in all those conflicts and what cause would justify the aftermaths in the form of devastated cities and long refugee corridors... Or even what words should I use to describe the foolishness of the new cold war between nuclear-powered "super countries" and what that will mean for our children and theirs in the future... Then I realized that reacting to meaningless affairs and worldwide political absurdity in a world so divided by racial, structural, governmental, and religious diversity is also meaningless. I also realized that I said enough in the past. There is nothing new to be added or said. There will always be people who will think that a rifle is not a rifle if it never fires a bullet.

And to use a rifle, you need war, right?

I have to admit that I have mixed feelings when it comes to military, soldiers, wars, battles, tactics, military gadgets, and stuff. On the 'interesting' side of the medal, warfare, if placed in history, good stories or movies are simply extraordinary tales, and I love them. Perhaps, in a way, it was also based on my experience as a soldier: I served the army more than two decades ago within the mandatory military service, and I was situated in the surface-to-surface missile unit and trained for operating small rockets designed for targeting tanks and other heavy machinery. I couldn't say I enjoyed all the time spent in the service, but I wouldn't be telling the truth if I'd say that it wasn't interesting and educational, at least from the technical point of view.

The cannon from the Hill of Čegar

Speaking of history and tales, this summer, I mentioned one of the most famous last stands in the history of wars in the post "Fishermen and Pirates of Evia", when King Leonidas of Sparta confronted a large army of the Persian Empire and stood to the very end guarding a narrow pass in the battle of Thermopylae almost 2500 years ago. Anyhow, here, in Serbia, in our own history, we also have one of those suicide missions, conveniently called "last stands" by military vocabulary, and it happened only a couple of kilometers on the north from our house on the nearby hill called Čegar. Just like Leonidas, Serbian general Stevan Sindjelić, during the First Serbian Uprising against the Ottoman Empire in the year 1809, confronted a huge Ottoman offensive after the Serbian army failed to capture the main Turkish fortress in the city. Outnumbered by 1 to 10 Serbian trenches only managed to reject several attacks, and after almost all day long of fighting, the battle turned out to be one of the best-known last stands in the long history of Ottoman occupation of Serbian lands. Ultimately, when battle turned to be hand-to-hand combat in the trench, Stevan fired his flintlock pistol into a pile of gunpowder kegs in the moment when ottoman soldiers swarmed the trench from all sides and headed for him personally. The explosion was tremendous, and the fall of Stevan's trench created time for other Serbian troops in the remaining 5 trenches to retreat on time, and, in the aftermath, Turks took all the Serbian soldiers' heads off and used the skulls to build a tower along the road to Constantinople as a warning to anyone rising against the Ottoman Empire.

Yesterday, we decided to visit the hill where it all happened and took some photos with two remaining cannons from the battle and from the monumental tower standing in the middle of the field. It was one of a kind experience that leaves a distressed feeling, especially after the glimpse from the top of the narrow tower toward the planes and the city.

Stevan Sindjelić & Remains of the Skull Tower in Niš

But there is another side of my mixed feelings regarding this topic. Simply put, if you place the warfare outside the history or fiction and experience it live, for me, all the magic from movies and books is evaporating into thin air almost immediately. While I wasn't participating in any warfare in the army, I have witnessed real air strikes performed by NATO aircraft, dropping cluster bombs just hundred's of meters away from my house. I saw them explode*. I saw real damage in neighboring houses and streets and saw people injured from the impacts. Real people. Not soldiers. Collateral victims. Civilians. It wasn't fun. It seems that warfare two centuries before was more dignified, to say the least. The battles before were "organized" outside settlements, and most of them took place in the fields where no civilian casualties could be possible. Today, if you look at the aftermath of any wars happening everywhere on the globe, the first thing you will notice are devastated cities, villages, houses, schools, hospitals, even... Murdered innocent people and children. Ruins in all directions. It is easy today to pull the trigger. From the distance. There are no real heroes or knights today like before.

Modern times and technological advances perhaps ruined the very essence of war, but deeply in it's core, the war was, is, and will always stay our darkest invention. Yes, it looks amazing with special effects in movies and written in our history books full of heroes and heroic events, but in a nutshell, it represents the worst genes we kept from our animal ancestors, evolutionary speaking.

View from Čegar's monumental tower with Viktor's plastic AK-47 toy gun

And the armies... They are a big part of it. Following words, said a couple of years before the battle of Čegar, on a different continent, are still fresh and valid, just like if they were said yesterday. Almost certainly, the famous James Madison's quote will stay accurate for many more centuries. After all, as a species, humans are not really capable of learning from their own mistakes:

"Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes… known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.… No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare." - James Madison, Political Observations, 1795

I am sure proving his point is as easy as glimpsing the yearly statistics for the Global Firepower, aka GFP. Following numbers I acquired from "Business Insider" and "The Center for Arms Control & Non-Proliferation". They are collected for the latest year, and I summarized the data for only the top 5 armies in the world: US, Russia, China, India, and the UK (and you can freely double these numbers for accounts of all other countries).

Anyway, more or less, give or take, believe it or not, in the nutshell, GFP numbers are:

6.000.000+ soldiers (human beings, men in the uniform)
35.000+ tanks (the iron amfibia combat vehicles with heavy guns on the top)
22.000+ aircraft (fighters, bombers, logistic planes, all kinds of military flying machines)
16.000+ nuclear warheads (only couple of them needed to cease all life on earth)
1000+ warships (cruisers, destroyers, frigates, corvettes, etc.)
15+ aircraft carriers (monster nuclear-powered ships)
230+ combat submarines (with large nuclear engines under the sea)
900.000.000.000+ dollars spent for military budgets (per year)

And don't forget to add uncountable, and I really mean devastating, a large number of missiles and rockets, all kinds of ballistics, regular weapons, drones, rifles, pistols, cold weapons, military-based factories, scientific research facilities, spy satellites and military space programs, state-of-the-art uniforms, etc. Indeed, we don't have a name for that big number in mathematics. Even the number of zeros in that count would be probably longer than the letters in this very sentence.

The 11 Most Powerful Militaries In The World**

Now, only by comparing these numbers with James Madison's words, it seems that after 200+ years, perhaps armies are not children of war anymore. In the dawn of the third millennium, it seems now that they are perfectly capable of creating wars just to justify their own existence. If only war could stay in history and fairy tales... But we all know that's not going to happen. With all that weaponry in existence, there will always be people who will think that a rifle is not a rifle if it never fires a bullet.

Original post date: November 2014, Update: November 2015

Image ref:
**http://www.businessinsider.com/11-most-powerful-militaries-in-the-world-2014-4

Refs:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Čegar
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skull_Tower
http://armscontrolcenter.org/
http://www.globalissues.org/article/75/world-military-spending
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_with_nuclear_weapons
http://armscontrolcenter.org/issues/nuclearweapons/articles/fact_sheet_2014
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Madison
http://www.businessinsider.com/35-most-powerful-militaries-in-the-world-2014-7
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluster_bombing_of_Niš

Stone Age of Iron Gates

There were lots of breakthroughs in human history until this date. Some were instant and recognisable events or technological inventions and some were slow evolutionary processes in history of our species. Whatever they were, the outcome was always reshaped course of mankind entirely. In our own time one of those is no doubt learning how to split the atom and very invention of nuclear bomb. We are still living in the post-turbulence time of that latest breakthrough that has potential to rise us from the Earth toward the stars. Some would say that it is still unknown whether this one is more of a civilization killer event or true entrance into another phase of humanity. We will wait and see. Either way, it is breakthrough, nevertheless. In early human history there was one similar invention that had the same uncertainty. It was called "Neolithic Revolution" and it happened in the middle of the Stone Age. And yes, even though we are still here, consequences of this invention are still very much all around us.

"Lepenski Vir" by Giovanni Caselli

Yes, the invention is of course, the agriculture along with domesticating wild animals. In this part of the world it happened around the year of 5300BC and along with Vinča culture, it was invented by the one of the oldest civilization that occupied Iron Gates, the great gorge of mighty Danube at the spot called Lepenski Vir (Lepen Whirlpool) near the Koršo hills at the right bank of the river. The gorge had everything for the rise of one medium sized settlement for our Mesolithic predecessors. Large river with lots of fish, hills and valleys very near the bank with lots of small animals, deer and especially easily hunted herds of aurochs (now extinct specious of wild cows) and lots of water birds.

Many things happened in human minds with agricultural way of life. If you ask me, it was the point when humans abandoned the 'natural' way of life or to better say it was the time when natural equilibrium with humans being just a part of the biodiversity micro-cosmos of the inhabited area changed inevitably. We became the ultimate and the only player. Growing our own food and enslaving wild animals had risen us toward the god like creatures and we left our prehistorical ways for good. Just like with nuclear power, we made one great step in human evolution. And just like with nuclear bomb we invented all the side-effects we are suffering to this day.

With agriculture we didn't just invented unlimited food supplies. We got ourselves envy and jealousy toward our own neighbor and cousin for simple things as him having more food or land. We started to hunt for pleasure and not just for food. We started to steal and hate. We invented divine beings and prayers for them to spare our crops from natural hazards between planting and harvesting seasons. Let me just not repeating myself too much on the topic. Please read more about it in my last year post Supermarket Religion with review of one very interesting book and another civilization who lived in old settlement of 'Göbekli Tepe' in nowadays Turkey.

Anyway, yesterday I took my family to the Lepenski Vir and it's wonderful museum to learn more of this great people and how and why, on Earth, they managed to survive several millenniums in tent based settlements and lasted for maybe the longest period of time in human history. As for why, unfortunately I can't explain with words. You would have to visit Iron Gates and see it for yourself. In short - it is beautiful site. The river is magnificent and the gorge is one of the kind. The forests are still there and the feeling is, well, if I was one of the Mesolithic explorers on foot, finding this place would be the same as finding the heaven. Migrating it out would be, from one hunter and fishermen group point of view, well, stupid.

Perhaps the only thing this place doesn't have is lots of room for large agriculture fields and eventually these people left it as soon as they became too dependable by the Neolithic Revolution and from that point in time in fifth millennium before Christ we have no idea where they went and spread. Probably upstream Danube in search for large plains for their crops is currently most valuable scientific explanation. Maybe something more happened in addition to agricultural reasons to force them to leave but we don't know. Today, one of the large dams in the world, named 'Iron Gates I', created significant landscape change in form of a long river lake and flooded entire gorge and all the ancient settlements preventing further exploration in search for more clues.

Perhaps, for me, these guys in pre-agricultural times were extremely interesting for many reasons. Anthropologically speaking, they were large comparing to other humans in Europe at the time and lived longer and healthier life. Thanks to their diet with most of the fish dishes on their stone tables some of the prominent members of the society lived more than 60 years and some of them were tall enough to play in NBA with ease. Well, of course, most lived about 40-50 years old, but with their average height of 165 for women and 172 for men they might have origins in old Cro-Magnon species from Paleolithic. Fascinating story about all the skeletons in tombs were that no traces of violent deaths were found. Apparently, they were extremely peaceful people and also interesting fact that all excavated skeletons (more than 150 in total) miss only two teeth gives a clue that their amazing diet with almost 70% fish and rest of the meat and berries was a fact that they literally lived in some sort of the Mesolithic paradise.

At the end, all the main exploration and excavations of this site was made by professor Dragoslav Srejović of the University of Belgrade. 136 buildings, settlements and altars were found in the initial excavations in 1965-1970. I read somewhere that Dragoslav Srejović was a giant in a Newton way of definition and I couldn't agree more. This short film above is the same one they played for us in the museum. I am sorry I couldn't find the one with English subtitles but it was great learn and amazing documentary considering it was filmed in the same time lapse as the exploration. And as my wife noticed it has even a romantic tale in the background that gives a special touch and feel of one typical archaeological life in mid sixties.

Refs:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lepenski_Vir
http://www.donsmaps.com/lepenski.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurochs

Constantine & Naissus

A couple of centuries after Christ, Constantine was a very popular name. Especially among soldiers in the Roman and Byzantine empires, along with Greeks during their Macedonian age. Within Latin, Cōnstantīnus, and Greek, Κωνσταντῖνος (Kōnstantînos), the name literally means the one who's constant and steadfast, especially within military properties related to strength and stamina. In those times the land of my current location was called Moesia Superior, with the city of Naissus in the role of its main trade center and biggest military outpost for the Roman army. Today's name of the city is "Niš", the largest city of southern Serbia and also the city where I was born and where I have lived ever since. The Serbian usage of the name is "Konstantin", and even though it is not related to the the military anymore, the name is fairly popular nowadays among young Serbians. It was third on my list when my son was born simply because I really like names with strong inner "adjectivity" and history as well, but in our case my son's name, Viktor, won six years ago in the photo finish. If I had another son, his name would probably be Konstantin (Constantine) or Filip (Philip), but now it is certain that this will stay in my wish list only.

Constantine the Great*

Well, this post is not going to be just about names. Instead it will be equally about my birth town, the history of the Christian religion and the "Edict of Milan", a small glimpse of the Roman Empire, the end of the Classical era during violent events in ancient Alexandria, and a little photography along the way. But, for a moment, let's stay with names and their importance for this story. With mention of the "Edict of Milan", the city I was most probably named for, many of you probably guessed why I partly named this post "Constantine". Constantine I, or Constantine the Great, emperor of the western part of the Roman Empire, and Licinius I, his fellow emperor of the eastern part, in February of 313 BC, declared Christianity, the rising religion of the time, to be treated equal to all other official beliefs in the whole of southern Europe, northern Africa, and a big portion of eastern Asia ruled by Romans after the Crucifixion of Jesus, where the modern history we are living in started. But the early days (or, to better say, centuries) of "modern history", or what we love to call "AD," were, to call it the least, very disturbing. The probably best example of those violent "multi-religious" times happened at the end of the fourth century in the city of Alexandria. I am sure if Alexander the Great knew what would happen 700 years after he founded the city, he would never do it in the first place. In the classic BC times of great cities, free thought and scientific premises flourished in the most famous institution in the world at the time and probably ever since—the great Library of Alexandria. In those times, over a million scrolls from Assyria, Greece, Persia, Egypt, India, and many other nations were stored in the library, and comparing it to nowadays terminology, we can safely say that the entire ancient "internet" was located within one single library. More than a hundred scholars worked full-time within the library's walls, performing research, translating documents, giving lectures, and writing books. It was one of the shiniest periods of the whole world's history.

Then "Anno Domini" happened. Soon after the birth of Christianity, Alexandria became home for people of different beliefs but mainly Christians, Jews, and Pagans. One ancient writer claimed that there were no people who loved a fight more than those of Alexandria. Religious animosities rose to the edge in the time of Theophilus, Patriarch of Alexandria, and in his raid, around 391 AD, the Temple of Serapis, where one branch of the Alexandrian library was located, was demolished, documents were destroyed, and the temple was converted to a church. The rest of the library's treasure was probably lost a couple of years later when one of the most famous women who ever lived, Hypatia, a Neoplatonist philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer, was killed by Christians during some retaliation against both the Jews and the Pagans. That night was officially the end of Classical antiquity, or the era of prosperity I was talking about in the post Aegean Sea. If some document survived that night, when Hypatia was stripped, beaten, and hacked to pieces and her body burned to hide all traces of the crime, then it was destroyed centuries later, when Muslims took the city of Alexandria around the year of 640 AD, where all the remaining scrolls were proclaimed either heresy or superfluous.

Rachel Weisz as Hypatia of Alexandria in Agora (2009)

There is no doubt that Constantine the Great was one of those great visionaries who foresaw all possible futures of the Roman Empire and had enough courage to act and officially acknowledge the definite rise of Christians in order to avoid all the dangers that came with the first multicultural societies. Rome and Constantinople under his rule and the rules of many emperors that came later more or less managed to survive Alexandria's fate. At least until a couple of centuries later when the third big player in the world of monotheistic religions appeared in the face of Islam. We all know what happened next. The Crusades. What happened to Alexandria in the fourth century started to happen to Jerusalem. Multiple times. During each crusade. Some would say it is not over yet.

If the story so far was not enough to demonstrate the cruelty of the first couple of centuries of the first millennium AD, I have some more historical facts, and they all originate way back to the point of the first founders of my hometown. The misfortune of Naissus was in the fact that its location was on the crossing road point between north and south and west and east. Whoever the warrior you were and whatever army or tribe you belonged to in those times, your path would lead through Naissus, and you were destined to raid it, no matter if you were a member of the Triballi tribes who invaded this area in the 4th century BC, a member of the Gallic groups who invaded the Balkan Peninsula during the 3rd century BC, or a Roman who gave the original name to the town and held it the longest period of them all, but with the price of thousands of men lost in numerous battles, with the most famous one called simply "Battle of Naissus", where Romans with the help of Dalmatians and Greeks finally defeated the enormous invasion by Goths and their allies. Later in the 5th and 6th centuries, the town was constantly in flames and devastated by Attila's Huns and barbarians, restored by Romans and Byzantine emperor Justinian I, and then demolished again by Avars and finally occupied by Serbian ancestors, the Slavs, in the year 540 AD or so. Serbians managed to hold it even longer than Romans, all the way into the next millennium, but also with frequent interruptions by various invasions in the face of Bulgarians and Ugri (Hungarian ancestors). The second millennium was no different, and the same area where I am sitting right now was under different rulers: firstly by Byzantine forces, the Hungarian kingdom, Greeks, Serbians again, the Ottoman Empire, Austrians... Phew... I probably forgot someone. Let's just finish with all the world wars, Germans, and the Nazis and hope that all the testosterone in the third millennium has devolved a little and we will witness no more wars like before.

Third-century Roman soldiers battling Gothic troops**

Naissus was a birth town for three Roman emperors in the 3rd century and after. The most famous one was of course, Constantine the Great (272), but also Constantius III (360) and later Justin I (450). Within the suburb of Naissus, not far from the thermal water spa, during the reign of Constantine the Great, Romans built a luxurious residence with a highly organized economy by the name of Mediana***. Until it was fully destroyed by Attila's hordes in the year 442, the residence was used by several emperors after Constantine, including Julian the Apostate, who was best known for his attempts to restore paganism to the Roman Empire, and this time within Hellenistic polytheism (Julian was also one of the Neoplatonist philosophers, like Hypatia), and for several edicts in various laws, including the Tolerance Edict of 362. Obviously, his efforts were not successful for a longer period of time, and religions with gods seen in plural finally ended in Greek and Roman mythology and picturesque legends. But, perhaps the best-known role of the residence of Mediana, which is, by the way, only a couple of hundred meters from my home, was in the year 364 AD, when emperors Valentinian and Valens met there and divided the Roman Empire and ruled as co-emperors.

Well, in the history of humans, every separation between west and east was never without serious consequences. The separation of the Roman Empire, over time, moved the center of power from Rome to Constantinople, starting with Rome's fall on September 4, 476. The Christian Church suffered the same. Distance and differences did the math, and the Church finally separated in the so-called "Great Schism", culminating in the early 11th century and giving birth to the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church we all know today. The saddest thing is that one full millennium has passed since then, and both "grand" fractions of the same religion are still looking at each other over their shoulders. After all that time, I am positive that if we randomly select one Catholic cardinal and one Orthodox patriarch and ask them why the Church split up in the first place and why they didn't manage to even sit and talk for 1000 years and find the way to "un-schism" the lost millennium, I am sure that they would hardly be able to provide any meaningful answer. Giving up the throne is never easy, and I guess the only way to unite Christianity is for God to show himself once again and to cut the misery once and for all. But, this story is not the place for me to express all of my skepticism about this, and if you are eager to read more about my religious glimpse of the world, please go to Science of God.

In front of Church of the Holy Emperor Constantine and Empress Helena

Well ok, let's stop with history now and continue with some more cheerful stories. For starters, please allow me to quote my favorite character from the movie "Kung Fu Panda". In the animated story, Master Oogway, among all his turtle wisdom, said exactly this: "Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the present." It is a beautiful one-liner, and after a little search online, I have to say that I failed to find the origin of this quote, but I am perfectly fine to credit it to Oogway himself. In that spirit, let's switch from history to the present and talk a little about my home city and the religious event happening this weekend.

This year is the 1,700th anniversary of the Edict of Milan, and this weekend is chosen in Serbia to be memorialized with special liturgy (λειτουργία), where all major patriarchs gathered in Niš, or Naissus if you will, to honor Constantine's efforts to stop persecuting Christians and give the rising new religion a chance to be equal with others. The liturgy took place in front of the Church of the Holy Emperor Constantine and Empress Helena in one of the biggest parks in the city, and for this occasion a piece of wood from Jesus's cross (fragmentary remains that are by tradition alleged to be those of the True Cross) and John the Baptist's right hand, with which he baptized Jesus, were transferred to Constantine's new church. Last night, two relics were moved to the new display, and we wanted to feel the atmosphere. The crowd was fantastic, and on the nearby cross section people formed the cross with candle lights in total darkness (below photo), while this morning was the official event for "VIPs", which was much less interesting. Perhaps the only shadow to the occasion was the presence of a zillion policemen fully armored and spread everywhere. I guess they will never learn that the same job can be done without uniforms and with hidden guns, but that's a topic for another story.

1,700th anniversary of the Edict of Milan in Niš, Serbia

After 1700 years, I guess lots of things changed. There is no Roman Empire anymore or big crusades, but religiosity is still there, without much disturbance by the passed centuries. We can say about the Christian church in general whatever we want, but one thing is for sure. A society of people can't live without protocols and rituals. This is what we are, and I will just repeat what I said two years ago in relation to Orthodox Christian rituals: "From the point when we are born until we die, there are many occasions requiring many events to be performed. I mean, I can't imagine a wedding here in Serbia without the church involved. They have very nice protocols. Funerals too. Anything that requires more than two people to participate with, religious organizations are doing this just right."

They proved it once again.

Image ref:
https://philipstanfield.com/tag/mysticism-2/

* Constantine the Great
https://relevancy22.blogspot.rs/2015_03_02_archive.html

** Battle of Naissus
http://www.crystalinks.com/CrisisoftheThirdCentury.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Naissus
http://artnumisma.com/2013/05/20/battle-of-naissus-268ad/
http://www.geocities.ws/reginheim/battles.html

*** Mediana
http://www.panacomp.net/serbia?mesto=srbija_medijana
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediana

More references
http://www.math.wichita.edu/history/women/hypatia.html
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/Roman_Empire_125.png
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantine_the_Great
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niš
http://www.ni.rs/index.php?language=en
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edict_of_Milan